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“We’re on the same team.”
“You’ll still find a way to compete with me.”
“That’s because you cheat.”
Her eyes moved toward the confiscated flask. “I learned from the best.”
Bliss dismissed everyone to finish breakfast. Chairs scraped against the floor while the Bennetts immediately began arguing over strategy and Briggs attempted to retrieve his flask without being seen.
Charm stood and tucked the clipboard beneath her arm. The hem of her pink shirt shifted above her shorts, and my eyes followed the movement before good judgment could intervene.
She caught me.
“Are you studying the team uniform?”
“I’m identifying design flaws.”
“What flaws?”
“Your shorts.”
Charm looked down. “What’s wrong with them?”
“They’re interfering with my ability to focus.”
Her smile carried every dangerous thing that had passed between us outside her room. “That sounds like a personal problem.”
“It became your problem when Bliss made us captains.”
“Try to keep up, Ryan.”
She turned and walked toward Aura and Bliss, her pink shirt moving above those tiny white shorts while I remained beside the table in pastel green, sober, sexually frustrated, and scheduled to spend the entire day attached to the one woman capable of making all three conditions worse.
Cade stopped beside me and followed my attention.
“You’re staring.”
“I’m assessing team morale.”
“Is morale located in Charm’s shorts?”
“Today it is.”
He laughed and slapped my shoulder before walking toward Bliss.
Charm waited near the banquet-hall doors with excitement brightening her face. She had warned me she intended to fight for a future. I had given her the weekend to try because I believed the ending remained safely out of reach. Until the Harlens arrived and tested everything she claimed had changed, I intended to take every kiss, touch, laugh, and uncomplicated moment she offered.
I followed her anyway.
10
Charm
By ten o’clock, the eastern lawn of Oheka Castle looked as though a bridal magazine had seized control of summer camp.
Pink-and-white flags marked the starting line near the gardens. Six wicker baskets waited beneath an arch covered in roses, each containing a clipboard, a Polaroid camera, and an envelope sealed with a heart. Estate employees stood at stations across the grounds wearing discreet earpieces and expressions suggesting they had been thoroughly warned about the Bennett family.
The wedding party gathered in our pastel shirts, sunglasses, and varying stages of resistance.
